Louis Menand has offered a calm and lucid response to the usual jeremiads about higher education–but is its lecture targeted to an ever-shrinking audience?

The elephants of South Africa and the right whales of the North Atlantic are enormous, complex – and confronted with a growing human population. Two books estimate their chances.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was peaceful, orderly, and above all sensible, or so says towering Victorian historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. Two new books look at the man and the Revolution he so indelibly described.

Since the days of T.E. Lawrence, reporters have been providing the West with carefully-wrought (or overwrought) tales of the Middle East. A new book comments on the excesses–and maybe commits a few too.

Stuart Weisberg’s biography of Barney Frank may be scattered and incomplete, but it’s got one huge saving grace: Frank’s own witticisms on nearly every page.

Is it possible to defend a group of people who gleefully made rape and torture a part of their lives? Freydis Skaar reviews a new history of the Vikings and finds its author, Robert Ferguson, doing something very close to that.

It’s often forgotten, or ignored, that China has a four-thousand-year-old history as rich and varied as any Western civilization. Hugh Seames hopes that John Keay’s immense new book will change some misperceptions about the Middle Kingdom

Jonathan Safran Foer is not the first, but is certainly the most famous, to investigate the ethics of eating animals. Megan Kearns studies both the style and the substance of his argument, with an eye to his less acknowledged allies in vegetarianism

Unlike most prior White House wonks, Matt Latimer aw-shucks his way through history and into deep, deep trouble; Greg Waldmann reviews Speech Less

As Laura Kolbe shows, A New Literary History of America throws every word of its own title into question—and that’s not the most exciting part of Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors’ immense anthology

When he was banished for life from Rome, Ovid was trying to alter his artistic forms with his Metamorphoses. Trace the transformations in Steve Donoghue’s final “Year with the Romans”

In Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sherilyn DuWunn chronicle the plight of women from the Congo to Cambodia, and everywhere else across the globe; Megan Kearns reviews their work.

In 1938 Neville Chamberlain faced the ultimate ‘what if’ scenario, negotiating peace with Hitler; A.C. Childers weighs in on David Faber’s new account of the results.

Dan Baum and Dave Eggers have made very different books on New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; Thomas Larson separates sense from sensationalism.

No one’s safe in their home when big money sniffs around; so the Supreme Court famously ruled in Kelo v. New London: John Cotter reviews muckraker Jeff Benedict’s Little Pink House

Ned Sublette pens a loving portrait of New Orleans before Katrina struck. Ingrid Norton reviews The Year Before the Flood.

He was everybody’s friend, and his poetry breathes with life even today. He was Horace, and “A Year with the Romans” makes his acquaintance.

In a new work of Egyptology, bestselling author James Patterson claims he’s cracked the oldest murder case this side of Cain and Abel, but is Ascanio Tedeschi convinced?

The writers of Freakonomics are at it again, this time in super-sized form; Arthur Brock scrutinizes their findings.

In A Vindication of Love, Christina Nehring has set herself the task of reclaiming romantic love for the Twitter Age. Ingrid Norton rates the results.

Simon Schama’s The American Future finds ways to relate most of American history to President Obama. Amanda Bragg checks the connections.

Steve Donoghue’s “A Year with the Romans” continues with a look at the obscure Roman poet Persius – and the great new book about him.

Statesmen, philosophers, and serial killers turn to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, but what was the emperor himself like? Frank McLynn’s Marcus Aurelius tells, and in this month’s “A Year with the Romans,” Steve Donoghue assesses.

In Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer suggests that science has prematurely evicted a prime mover from cellular biology, and he would like it put back. Ignazio de Vega tests his case.

In Reason, Faith, and Revolution, literary critic Terry Eagleton joins the contentious “God Debates” popularized by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. Jeremy Kessler moderates the results.

The only surviving full-length biography of Alexander the Great was written by a Roman. Steve Donoghue looks at Quintus Curtius Rufus as “A Year with the Romans” continues.

Sure, he banged his shoe on a podium, but there was more than that to the fun-loving, infuriating Khrushchev – lots more, as Kristen Borg finds out in Peter Carlson’s K Blows Top

Church and State collided in Henry VIII’s England, and Durham Cathedral was caught in the middle. Steve Donoghue returns to his Tudor beat to review Geoffrey Moorhouse’s The Last Divine Office.

Brilliant novelist/amateur crank Mark Helprin despairs of your online thievery, and Esther Schell despairs of his new book, Digital Barbarism.

Larry Tye has written a book about the greatest, longest baseball career to date; Brad Jones benches the Babe and tallies up Satchel.

Carl Van Doren called her “the princess who takes off her pants,” but who was Gypsy Rose Lee, really? Kindly let Michael Adams entertain you in looking at two recent biographies.

That famous vein of gold (well, mostly silver) made American millionaires, awful tragedies, and Mark Twain. Eli Wanamaker’s literary quarry is Dennis Drabelle’s Mile-High Fever.

Bryn Mawr’s deaconess Edith Hamilton and Catullus, the bard of Rome’s underbelly, would seem to have little in common. Steve Donoghue brokers a meeting in the latest “Year with the Romans.”

Great Britain has finally made a woman poet laureate—and a lesbian no less. As Bryn Haworth reports, when she’s isn’t writing about the Royals, she’s plenty worthy of the honor. Since writing about the Royals is one of the job’s few requirements, what changes might we expect from the post?

Richard Beeman, in his Plain, Honest Men, reminds us that the Founding Fathers weren’t demigods. Thomas J. Daly measures their feet of clay.

Steve Donoghue takes the emperor’s box to thumbs-up or thumbs-down an array of Roman historical novels, as “A Year with the Romans” continues.

Edward Lucas, in The New Cold War, puts a modern face on the hoary geopolitical struggle between the Russian bear and the American eagle. Greg Waldmann sorts the players and evaluates the stakes.

Sarah Ruden, the latest and greatest translator of Vergil’s Aeneid, offers a funny and fascinating glimpse inside the classicist’s world in this Open Letters interview.

Steve Donoghue’s “Year with the Romans” turns its eye upon Titus Livius, who either wrote poetical history or historical poetry, depending on who you ask.

The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, was compiled in the early 19th century from a much older oral tradition—can it possibly have anything to teach the modern reader? Sean Hughes has some surprising answers.

Just as we approach the time when there will be no more living witnesses to the Second World War, Richard Evans concludes his monumental three-volume Nazi history with The Third Reich at War. Steve Donoghue makes record of the results.

Novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers have begun weaving the Columbine shootings into their fiction. Reviewing Dave Cullen’s Columbine, Brad Jones concentrates on the sad facts alone.

That persistent bugaboo of publishers (and recently, the reading public): writers passing off others’ work as their own. Paul Maliszewski’s Fakers looks at some notorious cases, and John G. Rodwan Jr. weighs in.

For half a century, Senator Ted Kennedy has been carving out a legacy in Congress. The legacy and the man come into focus in Thomas J. Daly’s review of Last Lion.

Virgil’s Aeneid has been attracting translators for centuries, and Sarah Ruden’s rendering is notable in more ways than one. (She calls him Vergil, for one thing, but that’s just the start.) Steve Donoghue regards her efforts in the latest “A Year with the Romans.”

Malcolm Gladwell is once again on the bestseller lists, this time for Outliers, about the social science of genius. Peter Coclanis begs to differ with the vox populi.

It’s been twenty years since the robbery of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Jan van Doop retraces the art crime of the century in Ulrich Boser’s The Gardner Heist.

Peter Ackroyd’s Thames: the Biography is a rambling, list-laden account of the much-storied river. Our London correspondent Bryn Haworth tests the waters.

Ronald Reagan was the only modern U.S. President to keep a daily journal. Steve Donoghue plumbs The Unabridged Reagan Diaries in search of the diarist’s soul.

In 1979, the mighty Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan – and quickly got bogged down in a quagmire from which victory seemed impossible. In The Great Gamble, Gregory Feifer examines what happened; muscular Zac Marconi tries to tie it all together.

Thomas DiLorenzo, in Hamilton’s Curse, lays all the present-day woes of the United States at the feet of that most problematic of Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. Did Aaron Burr do us all a favor? Thomas Daly weighs the prosecution’s case.

And you thought text-messaging was bad! In the 1920s, the gin-soaked youth movement of the Bright Young People swept through London, making headlines and raising eyebrows. Honoria St. Cyr takes a whirl through D. J. Taylor’s book on the subject and asks: “WTF?”

Evan Thomas, under the aegis of Newsweek, with substantial researcher assistance, after the editing of … well, “A Long Time Coming”, the first post-election account of President Obama’s campaign, got written somehow. Greg Waldmann goes into it with high hopes – and then conducts the autopsy.

They were wealthy, influential, and for two centuries in England they wielded power to rival the king’s … but who were the Earls of Pembroke (and their equally formidable wives)? In Quarrel with the King, Adam Nicolson takes us beyond the pomp, and here Steve Donoghue looks at the politics of family.

Would the inventor of “sprung rhythm” have lived a more carefree existence in a world that allowed him to live and love the way he wanted? What poetry would he write in such a world? Steve Donoghue takes a brisk dip into Paul Mariani’s Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life.

Mary Borden’s long-forgotten 1929 memoir of World War I, The Forbidden Zone, takes its readers into the harrowing world of a front-line trauma nurse. Joanna Scutts joins her in the trenches and assesses the damage.

John Demos, author of The Unredeemed Captive, has produced The Enemy Within, a new comprehensive history of witch-hunting, a mania that has gripped mankind for centuries. From Salem to the McCarthy hearings and beyond, Rita Consalvos surveys this new survey.

Everybody’s heard of Hannibal, who crossed the Alps and out-fought the Romans in battle after battle. Far fewer people have heard of Scipio, the young general who finally defeated him. And nobody’s heard of the hero Ascanio Tedeschi uncovers in his examination of two books on ancient Rome’s great and near-great.

Jane Mayers’ The Dark Side describes the United States’ rapid descent into the murky ways of torture and secret autocracy. Whether its the expediting of illegal proceedings or the out-sourcing of brutality, Greg Waldmann tries not to flinch from what he finds in Meyers’ account.

The kings and counts of Tudor England wouldn’t have known the name of minor Cheshire landowner Humphrey Newton, but in reviewing Deborah Youngs’ book on the man, Steve Donoghue illustrates just how much Newton can teach us about the era. “A Year with the Tudors” concludes here.

In this tensely-charged election year, all eyes fix on the blogosphere – of 1787. Jeffrey Eaton signs us in to Library of America’s 2-volume Debate on the Constitution and fills the comments field.

Millions of people all over the world feed their pets food manufactured under circumstances that would make Upton Sinclair spin in his grave. Sara Shaffer sifts through the ingredients of Marion Nestle’s Pet Food Politics.

Before the pestiferous little Corsican conquered Europe, he tried his hand at Egypt – Steve Donoghue exposes how the general disposes in his review of Paul Strathern’s Napoleon in Egypt.

Euripides’ Medea has been explained, performed, and debated for the last 2000 years. Panagiotis Polichronakis looks at Robin Robertson’s new translation and ponders whether it’s fit for scholars, dramaturgs, or the all-elusive common reader.

A mere month remains until the most fiercely fought and most historically pivotal American presidential election of the last half-century. In July, Greg Waldmann served up an in-depth look at Republican John McCain. Here, just in time for the election, he does likewise for Democrat Barack Obama.

Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson achieved immortal fame in his Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862. Peter Cozzens re-examines the man behind the legend, and Steve Donoghue adjudges the results.

“It assaults me, and I adore it!” exclaimed Isabella Stewart Gardner of the legendary city of Venice, and legions of visitors have felt likewise. Venetian writer Tiziano Scarpa writes a love-letter to his spellbinding native city. Professor Hugh Seames has the oar.

With his new book and coinage Crowdsourcing, Jeff Howe argues that a democratic, everyman wisdom is the secret to business success. So is the vox populi really the key to quality? Kathleen Smith, crowd of one, weighs the argument.

William Shakespeare lived under the Tudors for most of his life, but he only wrote about them once, in his play The History of the Life of King Henry VIII – or did he? In our latest One Encounter, and also the new installment in his “Year with the Tudors,” Steve Donoghue takes a look at that play and the fractious theories attendant.

Mary Tudor’s fierce Catholic faith and merciless persecution of Protestants gave her the immortal nickname of “Bloody Mary.” In our ongoing feature A Year with the Tudors, Steve Donoghue reviews Linda Porter’s The First Queen of England: The Myth of “Bloody Mary.”

An in-depth addition to our Year with the Tudors: Open Letters chats with a writer equally hip-deep in the subject, Linda Porter, author of The First Queen of England: The Myth of “Bloody Mary.” Our first Q & A!

There’s something going on in the latest trend of Tudor book-covers, and we’re not sure what it is, although a pair (shall we say?) of aspects is quite obvious. What are these publishers thinking? Take a look for yourself! and a second look! and a third!

Even would-be world-beater Napoleon was never able to subjugate his critics. In reviewing Philip Dwyer’s new book Napoleon: The Path to Power, Thomas J. Daly finds at least one such critic still bashing away at the diminutive Corsican.

For those too addled by Xbox to grasp subtlety, Mark Bauerlein and Richard Shenkman have titled their respective books The Dumbest Generation and Just How Stupid Are We? For the rest of us, Laura Tanenbaum provides a nuanced evaluation of the laments of these cultural Jeremiahs.

Overlooked by many historians is the fact that Columbus didn’t just sail west to reach the East, he also sailed south, and he (and the rest of the world) had some specific ideas of what that meant. Bartolomeo Piccolomini shows how Nicolas Wey Gomez’s new book brings the full sphere of The Discoverer’s navigation to life, showing you a Columbus you never knew.

In his latest book (a slim one this time), Robert Kagan again probes the socio-political state of the West. History is back, he tells us—about a week after he told us it was gone. Greg Waldmann helps us to to keep track of the epochs without a scorecard in his review of The Return of History and the End of Dreams.

At the peak of his career, Naval Secretary (and posthumously famous diarist) Samuel Pepys found himself out of a job, in jail, and facing execution for his alleged plot against the government. Father and son writing team of James and Ben Long take the reader through all the twists and turns of the case; father and son reviewers Thurlow and Zach Truman report back.

In covering John McCain’s life and accomplishments, the American press has been, how shall we put it? less than tenacious. There are real stories they’ve yet to explore, or so argues Greg Waldmann in his first piece as Open Letters‘ Politics Editor.

Though the American Civil War produced more and better books and writers than any single event in our country’s history, Bruce Catton is the greatest of its 20th century tellers. In this regular feature, Steve Donoghue tours the breathtaking work of an unfairly set-aside annalist.

Ninety years ago, the author of The Birds of Puerto Rico bludgeoned a small boy to death with the help of then-lover Richard Loeb. Steve Donoghue takes readers through Simon Baatz’s For the Thrill of It—in which Clarence Darrow fights the good fight for a couple of very, very bad boys.

Partisans on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have trouble reconciling the intricacy of events with their national mythology. Greg Waldmann explains how the Benny Morris of 1948 is both the exception and the rule.

Ted Sorensen was the most loyal of JFK’s retainers and the last to finally spill the beans about the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Steve Donoghue walks us through the worthy—if somewhat hedging—memoir of an eloquent and haunted man.

Napoleon came home from Elba to find his wine barrels dry, his floors scuffed, and a host of minor nobodies redistricting his continent. This was the celebrated Congress of Vienna, and Thomas J. Daly takes us through the maneuvers of Vienna 1814 by David King.

More than any other dynasty in history, the Tudors are ready for their close-up. In this installment of his “Year with the Tudors,” Steve Donoghue leads us on a royal progress through film archives to access the heart and stomach of these undying superstars.

We know that we can digitize books, but is it possible to translate digital texts back onto paper? Carolyn Grantham explores this and other 21st-century dilemmas in her review of Sarah Boxer’s Ultimate Blogs.

What do you do when the courageous trailblazing author who formed your youth is accused of an unspeakable crime? John G. Rodwan, Jr. does what Orwell would have done, weighed the evidence and let the chips fall where they may.

Many readers forgave Michael Scheuer the angry bloody-mindedness of Imperial Hubris because of the merciless critiques of the Bush administration, but Greg Waldmann reports that in Marching Toward Hell, illogical anger is about all Scheuer has left

At the age of 64, ex-President John Quincy Adams did an unprecedented thing: he became a congressman. Thomas J. Daly looks back on the autumn of this remarkable man’s life in a review of Joseph Wheelan’s Mr. Adams’s Last Crusade.

And the murderer of the great Roman General Germanicus was…. No, you’ll never guess. Ascanio Tedeschi shows how historian Stephen Dando-Collins exploits a scarcity of known facts to formulate the most ludicrous whodunit in recent memory.

Today the name Mata Hari evokes a villainess in a James Bond movie. Yet, as Joanna Scutts discovers, if you wipe away the makeup from the myth, you uncover a far sadder and more complex tale.

The premise of Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational is that all of us are a lot more irrational a lot more often than we thought; Steve Donoghue tries to determine if the inmates really are running the asylum

Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey: commander, courtier, poet. In this installment of his “Year with the Tudors,” Steve Donoghue tells the story of how such an extraordinary young man fell foul of Henry VIII.

He makes tools; he uses fire; he caucuses with interest groups: this is Dana Milbank’s Homo Politicus. Greg Waldmann assesses Milbank’s field notes, wishing the taxonomist had been more exacting.

Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath God Wrought turns on the 1828 presidential race between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, a tawdry epic of mudslinging the likes of which would not be seen until our own era. Steve Donoghue revisits how it all, alas, began.

Steve Donoghue continues his “Year with the Tudors” with this look at Chris Skidmore’s biography of Edward VI, the ill-starred son of Henry VIII who might have been the most formidable Tudor monarch of all.

Books lamenting our fractured political system are as commonplace these days as polling and pundits, but, as Greg Waldmann discovers, the historical rigor of Ronald Brownstein’s The Second Civil War helps elevate it above its pandering peers.

As Steve Donoghue writes, the epitome of what a monarch can be was embodied in the massive form of Henry VIII, and not a year passes without another biographer struggling to tackle the man and his legacy. 2007 was no different….

The bestselling New Atheists presume that a simple faith in reason will make short work of the longing for God. David G. Moser takes them to task for what Nietzsche would have called their “complacent rationality.”

There was no popular conception of the serial killer in Victorian England in 1888. Jack the Ripper was self-made man, and, as Steve Donoghue writes, no one knows who he was.

Joanna Scutts reviews Soldier’s Heart by West Point professor Elizabeth D. Samet, whose memoir accomplishes the impressive feat of finding common ground between Army officers and English majors.